Climate denier bloggers sniff out new conspiracy Climate skeptic bloggers the world over have a shiny new conspiracy to obsess about: whether a University of Western Australia psychology professor "faked" a research study. In a deliciously recursive fury, the research – which looked at correlations between belief in "climate change conspiracies" as associated with other " …
If it were the discipline of chemistry it would still be trying to transmute lead into gold, it's got a long way to go to be 'accepted' in the same sense as modern day accepted sciences like physics-ology, chemistry-ology, etc. Climatology is still in its infancy.
As a 'science' a lot of its raison d'etre is to find the flaws within itself, not promulgate itself as the ultimate truth or find interpretations of results to support political agendas.
In what way is it a "brilliant story"? Have you read the survey? It contains numerous questions that cannot be answered in any way other than that which confirms the author's preconceptions, there seem to be three different versions of the survey floating around, the conclusions are based on the ten responses the author actually got to their survey (an absurdly small sample size), no realistic measures to control for self-selection of the sample group - indeed, it actively prejudices the sample group. For instance, the survey sent to the "non-skeptic" group was done under the author's own name whilst elsewhere that was concealed. It was also a very odd list of "skeptic" sites that the author chose to select for sending the questionnaire to, avoiding several popular and mainstream "skeptical" sites, and instead targetting more fringe sites.
Read a question that asks you to assert whether the 2003 invasison of Iraq was about WMD or not and tell me whether you think that question is an acceptable way to categorise people as "conspiracy theorists" or not.
The author of this study is a crank. I have seen YouTube videos by him where he says he has seen <insert flawed viewpoint> posted on AGW-skeptic forums, therefore AGW-skeptics think that thing. It's like saying I saw a post about how great the iPad is on Reg forums thus the view of El Reg is that the iPad is great. And I'm not exagerating. This person actively demonizes people he disagrees with using fundamentally flawed logic and terrible science. And if you take a look at this survery, even if more than 10 people had responded to it and they weren't purely self-selecting, the flaws in it would make it very difficult to tease out any actual meaning from the results.
The only way I can see this making you giggle is if it confirms some bias you already have and therefore you just like seeing an attack on those you disagree with, regardless of whether that attack was actually legitimate or not.
"Thank you, your angry swivel-eyed foaming made me continue to giggle."
I think it is right to get angry about bad science and academic dishonesty. If that makes you giggle like an idiot, that's up to you.
For most of us, laughing at people for caring about things stopped being considered cool sometime in Secondary School.
I keep seeing people refering to there being only 10 respondents. I believe there were over 1000. The confusion seems to be resulting from analysis of the responses.
Lewandowsky subtitiled his paper in such a way that it implied that if you were a moon landing conspiracist you likely did not accept the tennets of CAGW. By isolating just the respondents that answered in the affirmative that the moon landings were faked it showed that only 10 of the respondents and selected this option. Further analysis of just those 10 respondednts showed that 6 out of 10 believed unquestioningly that CAGW is real. Only 4 of the 10 were skeptical of CAGW.
So in summary over 1000 respondents of whom only 10 though moon landings were fake.
This appears to be a terribly ill conceived and conducted paper with large numbers of questions to be answered (why was he revaling prelimanry findings when the survey was still live?).
Oh and Chirgwin; you're a supercillious git.
Yep - I initially misread it like that and posted similarly above. You can actually get hold of the data yourself now (it's been provided by one of the AGW-skeptic sites) and see how dubious the conclusions are. 0.9% of respondents apparently believe the Moon landings were hoaxes.
The other elephant in the room is how he chose the sites to send the survey too. A lot of mainstream AGW-skeptic sites are checking and confirming they aren't aware of being contacted.
Now has it, or has it not, been the case that the chief attack on the sceptical position was to claim that sceptics were a group funded by, and driven by the interests of, big oil? In short, a conspiracy.
So we have the interesting position of the warmists:
- claiming that people who oppose their views are an organised conspiracy
- claiming that people who see conspiracies everywhere are less likely to believe in global warming.
"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies – all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth"*
It is clear who is in denial and violating the principles of logic here.
Why, if the case is so overwhelming, would they need to do that?
*"Double think" from 1984, by George Orwell.
"why is this even news? who cares what some blogs are saying on the internet? Wouldn't it make more sense to look at what's happening in the world. Eg hows the arctic ice doing?"
Well, it's doing some good for the flowers in my garden, where seemingly most of it has dropped this summer. The rest of the missing ice is currently in my water storage butts, judging by how full they are ;)
But I happen to agree with you, entirely, So you get an upvote from me!
Since I first read this article it appears to have been edited and the bits about Jo Nova and WUWT added, also the bullet points and the structure modified. The original was more of a rant about how silly denier conspiracy theorists were. The PDF links were at the end. Not cool el reg to edit an article without noting the change.
"or who strongly supported a free market economy were more likely to reject the findings from climate science as well as other sciences."
The fact that there is so many people out there that still thinks that 'free markets' -Adam Smith's ones- actually exist hints at the existence of lots of potential believers in phony conspiracy theories. The "free market" is -at most- just a point of unstable equilibrium that lasts -at most- for all of seven seconds, before monopolies, cartels, laws, taxes, insider trading, media ownership, banks and lobbying kick in.
I will probably get downvoted for this comment, but surely equally important an issue is that of (over)population and resource loading/capability?
As much as I enjoy the (A)GW debate, I do think that overpopulation and resource consumption is equally as important and would love to see some *serious* articles about this on The Register.
I would imagine that study of this matter is not quite so 'endemic', probably because it's not as easy to get a grant or to impose new taxes. Or is that the cynic in me talking?
I too would love to see such an article. Academics tend to be very wary of approaching this particular elephant in the room however, for fear of the massive attacks on them it tends to generate. We certainly can support more people on the planet than we currently do. We almost certainly cannot support everyone with an average US-level lifestyle. Whether we can support the current or greater numbers of people that we have right now long term, or if we're consuming resources at a greater level than we will be able to replace them, I have no idea. Fossil fuels will obviously run out, a shift to nuclear should be able to cover us for quite a long time. But potable water is actually being used at a greater rate than it is being replaced from what I've read and there is agricultural degredation as land is depleted of nutrients and forests are destroyed to make land for growing cattle feed (soy) for the US beef market. Long-term sustainable or not, I have no idea. And the climate is changing (whether by human activity or something else) so that will have effects. But whilst we don't know for certain how much we can sustain long term, there certainly seems no technological or socialogical reason why there needs to be quite so many of us. We could all still create new technologies and have a good social life if there were only four billion of us. So why take the risk?
The better educated people are and the more opportunities there are for women in the workplace, the greater population reduces in a humane and voluntary way.
"Academics tend to be very wary of approaching this particular elephant in the room however, for fear of the massive attacks on them it tends to generate"
Indeed. Much like the Global Warming debate there are zealots in both scientific camps willing to throw their rattle out of the pram rather than have a coherent and adult debate.
I did find this article which touches upon the subject:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/06/20126191060849944.html
Individuals such as Dr Robert Zubrin of The Center for Security Policy (www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org) states that "The idea of 'overpopulation' is not science at all, but a pseudo-scientific cover for racism and genocide". I can imagine having a well balanced scientific debate with this chap could be troublesome :)
"Why take the risk?", you say. I could not agree more. The strange thing is that I have seen global warming proponents use this argument when addressing anthropogenic forcing but who then summarily dismiss such an argument when addressing overpopulation and resource consumption.
It's going to be so, so difficult approaching this subject for these and many other reasons. But IMO it's a debate that should be had, sooner rather than later. Fortunately there is some movement on this - but unfortunately that debate will always include the likes of Robert Zubrin who attempt to smother debate with chants of 'neo-nazi like genocide'.
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Meanwhile, the entire world of SCIENCE, journalism and progressivism had allowed bank-funded and corporate-run “CARBON TRADING STOCK MARKETS” to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 26 years of insane attempts at climate CONTROL.
*Obama had not mentioned the crisis in the last two State of the Unions addresses.
*Julian Assange was of course a climate change denier.
*Occupywallstreet did not even mention CO2 in its list of demands because of the bank-funded carbon trading stock markets run by corporations.
*Socialist Canada killed Y2Kyoto with a newly elected climate change denying prime minister and nobody cared, especially the millions of scientists warning us of unstoppable warming (death).
Find us one single IPCC warning of "crisis" that isn't surrounded by "maybes" as in "possibly" and "potentially" etc. NEVER have they said it will happen, only might happen. Never. Deny that.
Help my planet is on fire..........................maybe?
You don't seem to have the neceessary command of the English language to understand the meaning of "denier" (not having declared what is being denied) and "conspiracy" when it is the products and the subsequent behaviour of an individual that is being criticised.
Like Richard Chirgwin, Professor Lewandowsky of the University of Western Australia seems to prefer infamy over obscurity; refusing to withdraw/hold the LewPaper from press in the face of the massive cockups in the design, conduct and analysis of the "experiment".
When even a cursory analysis of the raw data lead to a conclusion that contradicts the headline hypothesis, the Professor doesn't blink.
When further analysis shows that his hypothesis is dependent largely upon results tainted by obvious gaming of the survey which was conducted by soliciting responses largely from one demographic, the Professor doesn't blink.
When the questionaires omit the vastly more popular conspiracy theories of e.g. big oil/fossil fuel industry supporting the "skeptics", the Professor doesn't blink.
Instead of addressing the tangible, substantial flaws identified not only by the "usual suspects" but by "believers" in CAGW, the Professor "defends" with insults and distractions.
It doesn't take a conspiracy for Lewandowsky to behave like Chirgwin or vice versa. Self-interest, arrogance, ignorance and a degree of sociopathy are sufficient.
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